While I was in college 30 years ago, I learned that ulcers were primarily psychosomatic illnesses that were treated by managing stress and taking antacids. What roads we travelled ever since!

An Australian doctor, Dr Barry Marshall suspected in the early 1980s that a bizarre bacteria identified in the stomachs of some patients could cause ulcer disease. He managed to grow the bacteria in a petri dish. In 1984, frustrated that his colleagues did not believe in the link between the bacteria and ulcers, he had the idea to swallow the bacterial culture in question. Of course without discussing with any ethics committee and even less with his wife. Three days later discomfort appears, and a gastroscopy done 14 days later shows carbine gastritis. He took antibiotics to cure it. Multiple researches around the world have subsequently confirmed the importance of the bacteria H Pylori as a cause of ulcers. He eventually received the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 2005.

Since then, ulcer disease can be cured relatively easily. 

D^r Dominic Larose, M.D., CMFC(MU), FACEP